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It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within
one nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; there cannot
be as in the realm of sense thing apart from thing, here a sun
and elsewhere something else; all must be mutually present within
a unity. This is the very nature of the Intellectual-Principle as
we may know from soul which reproduces it and from what we call
Nature under which and by which the things of process are brought
into their disjointed being while that Nature itself remains
indissolubly one.
But within the unity There, the several entities have each its
own distinct existence; the all-embracing Intellect sees what is
in it, what is within Being; it need not look out upon them since
it contains them, need not separate them since they stand for
ever distinct within it.
Against doubters we cite the fact of participation; the greatness
and beauty of the Intellectual-Principle we know by the soul's
longing towards it; the longing of the rest towards soul is set
up by its likeness to its higher and to the possibility open to
them of attaining resemblance through it.
It is surely inconceivable that any living thing be beautiful
failing a Life-Absolute of a wonderful, an ineffable, beauty:
this must be the Collective Life, made up of all living things,
or embracing all, forming a unity coextensive with all, as our
universe is a unity embracing all the visible.
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